It is known to make construction blocks, consisting of two load-bearing parts made of concrete, one facing the outside and one the inside, and of one or more heat/sound insulating elements made of shaped polystyrene or a filling material, interposed between the two load-bearing parts.
Usually, the insulating or filling elements are made solid with the load-bearing parts by means of adhesives or other binding techniques. Examples of a machine and method to make such construction blocks can be found in patent application UD2007A0000130 filed in the name of the Applicant.
One disadvantage of known construction blocks is that they need particular and complicated strategies to lay the mortar, or other binder material, on the relative support planes of each block, to achieve a stable connection between one block and the other.
These strategies are, in particular, intended to prevent unwanted amounts of mortar from being deposited on the visible surfaces of the polystyrene insulating elements.
The intention in fact is to avoid creating heat bridges due to the positioning of the mortar upon the insulation, between the two parts of the concrete block, the internal and the external part, which would compromise the attempt to reduce the overall heat transmittance of the walls of the building between the inside and the outside.
Such strategies are achieved by putting a ribbon of material on the visible insulating parts in order to cover them and protect them from the mortar, by spreading the layer of mortar and subsequently removing the ribbon, so as to be able to locate the next construction block on the mortar. In this way there is no laying of the mortar on top of the insulation, but it is a complex, laborious and costly procedure.
Purpose of the present invention is to create a structural element, and relative machine and method to make it, formed from at least one part made of conglomerate material and from an insert made of insulating or filling material, constrained to each other, which allows easy installation, avoiding the formation of heat bridges due to the laying of mortar on top of the insulating elements.
The Applicant has devised, tested and embodied the present invention to overcome the shortcomings of the state of the art and to obtain these and other purposes and advantages.